On Other Blogs Today: Cliffs, Cars, and Cities

Our daily roundup.

1. The Washington State Labor Council's blog,The Stand, points out one largely unreported consequence of the "fiscal cliff" that could kick in at the end of 2012 if Congress fails to reach an agreement to reduce the federal debt: 60,000 residents of Washington state (among some 2 million nationwide) will lose their unemployment benefits if Congress fails to reinstate long-term unemployment insurance by December 29.

2. Robert Mak, the KING 5 host-turned-$160,000-a-year-mayoral-spokesman-turned-KING 5-host , has left the station after KING canceled his civic affairs show, Up Front.

The Seattle Times reports that the station offered to keep Mak on as a political reporter, but he declined. The final edition of Mak's show aired last Sunday.

3. As we reported yesterday (and in October), one-way carsharing company Car2Go is coming to (parts of) Seattle.

Car2Go allows users to take one-way trips instead of returning cars to the exact same spot where they picked them up.

The SunBreak has more today, reporting that the service has been "glitchy" in other cities, with users reporting "finicky electronics" and "snafus with billing."

Still, we're willing to take a gamble on the new carsharing service, which—unlike Seattle's current monopoly carsharing service, Zipcar—allows users to take one-way trips instead of returning cars to the exact same spot where they picked them up.

4. USA Today worries that Millennials (people 30-ish and under) will soon abandon cities for the suburbs as they start having kids and making more money.

Quoting Richard (yawn) Florida, the paper worries that as Millennials get older and more aspirational, they'll abandon "coffeehouses, hip entertainment venues and small flats" for "soccer fields, good schools and roomy homes."

I'm no demographer, but that concern strikes me as overblown: People, including married people and parents, gravitate to cities for lots of reasons, including community (urban areas tend to be more liberal), culture (like Tiny Tots at Benaroya), and convenience (a 20-minute light rail ride beats an hour-long drive any day of the week.